Page 25 of Total Obsession

"Something's not right," Beau whispered to me.

I nodded in agreement. We both took a step back.

"What's the matter?" he asked, still walking towards us, picking up his pace now.

"Split," I said to Beau, and we both ran off in separate directions. I could see our target's face in my peripheral. He looked frantic. Just as his image disappeared behind a container to my right, I saw a cop rush out, gun drawn, which meant he was a special cop, an AFO, because not just any Bobby got to carry a gun in this town.

A few twists and turns and I was stepping into the passenger seat of the car that was waiting for me in the event something went wrong. Presumably, Beau was getting into his on the other side of the docks. The driver drove off calmly, and no one followed us, because the cops were too busy trying to search through the containers as if we'd stay there on foot like idiots for longer than we needed to.

It was really disappointing when people didn't plan right. I was a little surprised that our target had flipped. Something must have happened to get him to suddenly work with the Met. Something recent, too.

A message from Beau appeared on my phone.

"The fuck was that?"

"I don't know. I'm looking into it,"I replied.

"Why didn't you know that the fucker flipped?"

I wasn't going to acknowledge his question with a response. I needed to look into the matter, and I wasn't going to try and defend myself or risk incriminating by guessing at what could have happened.

My phone rang, and I answered it.

"This is Axe," I said.

"What happened?"

It was my employer's representative. I had to show a bit more deference to him.

"I don't know, yet, Sir," I replied. "I'll need to look into it."

"That's not what I mean. Why didn't you call it off when you found out he flipped?"

"I wasn't aware that he'd flipped, which was why I hadn't called it off," I responded. I started to get a bad feeling that I was missing some piece of information. It was a feeling that I hadn't felt in quite some time.

"Really? The raid on his house wasn't enough to tip you off that things had changed?"

My stomach dropped. How did I not know that there had been a raid on his house? I quickly pulled my phone down and looked through my secured emails. Of course, there was one from Will waiting for me. I opened it up and sure enough, it contained pictures of our target's house being raided by police.

I put the phone back up to my ear. "An error. It won't happen again," I said affirmatively.

"You weren't hired to make errors."

"I'm aware," I replied.

The line went dead.

We were in front of my London residence.

I got out of the car, and the driver faded into the night. I unlocked my front door calmly, closing and locking it behind me. I removed my coat and took a deep breath. I looked into the mirror, into my reflection, and then promptly put my fist into it.

It had been a while since I'd had an outburst, but damn it, I really fucked up badly. There was no room for mistakes in my line of work. Mistakes were what got you killed. Mistakes were what got the other guy killed. I couldn't afford to make them.

More than that, my employer wouldn't be my employer for long if I continued to make them. It's why this line of work wasn't for everyone. Actually, it wasn't for really anyone. Most people would crumple under the pressure of having to be perfect all of the time.

It was not good for one's mental health to be put to such a standard. Thankfully for me, mental health was sort of a contradiction. Given my past, I never felt like it applied to me. It was one of those things that Millenials could talk about on Tiktok or whatever the latest app was. It wasn't something I'd ever have.

My hand was dripping blood and I pulled my cashmere scarf down from the coat rack and wrapped it around my fingers. Better the scarf than the extremely expensive Persian rug I was standing on. I made my way to the sink to pull the pieces of glass out of my knuckles, clean the wound, and wrap it.